To establish credibility and portray a trustworthy persona, Hitchens uses ethos. Hitchens uses ethos by having background knowledge on waterboarding as well as personal experience. “It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advance form of training known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not inflict” (Hitchens 616). In this quote, Hitchens explained why water boarding was used as a form of torture. This knowledge on the background helps the audience trust that he knows what he is talking about. If background knowledge isn`t enough to gain your trust, Hitchens underwent this simulation not once, but twice. This experience allowed him to truly
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“The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilating clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water...” (Hitchens 618). In this quote, the author vividly described how waterboarding feels. Another horrifying example is when Hitchens described this awful process again. “An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex” (Hitchens 618). The great details allow the audience to imagine how terrible it would feel to be tortured in such a way. Hitchens used a lot of imagery to hook the audience and gain their
“The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilating clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water...” (Hitchens 618). In this quote, the author vividly described how waterboarding feels. Another horrifying example is when Hitchens described this awful process again. “An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex” (Hitchens 618). The great details allow the audience to imagine how terrible it would feel to be tortured in such a way. Hitchens used a lot of imagery to hook the audience and gain their